Quotes by James Carse

If to operate a machine is to operate like a machine, then we operate not only with each other like machines, we opearte each other like machines. And if a machine is`most effective when it has no effect, then we opearte each other in such a way that we reach the outcome desired - in such a way that nothing happens.

All weapons are designed to affect others without affecting ourselves, to make others answerable to the technology we control. Weapons are the equipment of finite games designed in such a way that they do not maximize the play but eliminate it. Weapons are meant not to win contest but to eliminate them. Killers are not victors; they are unopposed competitors, players without a game, living contradictions. - James P. Carse

To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence. It is, in fact, seriousness that closes itself to consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself

There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.

The finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play,
...and bringing as many persons as possible into the play.

Finite players play within boundaries;
infinite players play with boundaries.

"A people, as a people, has nothing to defend.  In the same way, a people has nothing and no one to attack.  One cannot be free by oppressing another.  My freedom does not depend upon your loss of freedom.  On the contrary, since freedom is never freedom from society, but freedom for it, my freedom inherently affirms yours.  A people has no enemies."